Obssession
by Gunney
Summary: Following "Strain" Jack finds himself unable to ignore the loose ends involving the man that attacked him. Jack's POV P.S. Yes there will be a sequel.
1. Chapter 1

Jack sat in the stiff chair, thinly veiled as an easy chair, and focused on the laptop sitting on a rolling tray in front of him. The lines of text contained by pre-made fields were beginning to blur. He'd filled out these forms so many times in the last months. Why they couldn't simply purchase a year's supply of paper, ink and staples he didn't know. He'd grumbled about it so many times that people were starting to avoid him. In fact the only person that didn't leave the room when he started to whine about his temporary position as office manager for the fourth floor, was John Macy.

That was because John Macy was unconscious. He had been for the past two weeks.

Jack glanced over to the still pale body, lifeless limbs, chest rising and falling with the click and wheeze of life support. He wasn't completely brain dead. The neurosurgeon connected with Macy's case indicated there had been electrical activity going on. The man's heart was beating on its own. The point of the ventilator was to take some of the pressure off Macy's heart and lungs and increase the amount of oxygen getting to the brain. The slightest interruption in that oxygen flow could mean instant death.

Jack wanted Macy alive. Officially and unofficially. To that end he'd worked himself into the rotation of babysitters assigned to watching Macy, who, while he was alive, was technically under arrest. He was being charged with a slew of things that only began with the attack on Jack, his premeditated, if fake, attempt to harm Agent Samantha Spade, illegal entry, and seizure of sealed files.

Given his new hatred of the stuff, Jack was willing to consider Macy's use of fondant as a substitute for C4, as misuse of a controlled substance. But then he would have to arrest every bakery owner in New York City. Jack turned back to the blinking cursor and the field asking for the model number of the 500 boxes of steel staples he was preparing to purchase.

He was once again going to the psychiatrist. He'd been told that he had been through a traumatic event, that his behavior following that event had brought his stability into question, and that he was to refrain from entering the field until the psychiatrist declared him fit for duty. He supposed, in perfect hindsight, that sneaking his name into the rotation at St. Vincent's would in the end further prove his need for psychological help. But he would leave that to Dr. Bryson to figure out.

With one finger Jack tapped in the number that he had memorized against his will. "Be glad you were never a secretary, Mr. Macy." Jack grumbled and moved on to the next line.

The body across the way didn't respond. He didn't blink or moan or sigh.

It took Jack twenty minutes to finish the catch up work he had brought with him. Then he did what he had been doing from the first day.

He sat back in the chair, stretched his healing leg out in front of him, made sure his elbow wasn't resting against anything and stared at the thin case file on John Macy.

Adult male, 42, job listing showed as actor. There were grainy stills included in the folder, pictures that tech had taken of the various characters he had played in the vlog Jack's team had found. Laid side by side, face up, were color photos of John Macy as Sam Spade, and as Jack Malone.

Disturbingly, the likenesses were uncanny.

He'd seen the videos, as much of them as he could stand to watch before he wanted to crack the screen in half.

"You're a talented actor, Mr. Macy." He mumbled, reading through entire paragraphs that by now he had memorized. "Mannerisms, hair and makeup...it's not terribly flattering, but impressive."

Jack felt something familiar building up in his chest. Like hot air in a balloon preparing to launch. It was the feeling he always had when he had settled on a line of questioning that would get what he wanted out of suspect. He realized with a start that he was preparing to interrogate John Macy, a living corpse.

Jack closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead, frustrated, until his headache for the night had blossomed into full blown migraine.

 _Why are you doing this?_ He'd asked himself that question everyday since the incident. He knew that it would be the question his team would ask, Dr. Bryson, his boss. He didn't know the answer.

Once, years ago, he had been injured, nay tortured, by a woman seeking information from him. Before he had had the chance to arrest or interrogate the woman officially she'd been killed. But he hadn't visited Cynthia Neuworth's body in the morgue. In fact he'd felt absolute closure the day she was put to rest and her son went to trial.

Why did he not feel it now?

Why did he feel like he'd snapped the moment he decided to simply walk away from his captor? It'd been a bold move, but neither then nor now did he feel he'd made a mistake. He'd just had enough.

Lurking beneath the self doubt were his memories of his father. Watching his dad go from an elderly man with dignity and pride to a six-year-old boy hiding in a closet, terrified. Was this the start? Was this where his own spiral into dementia began? Was he overthinking this?

"What do you think, Mr. Macy. Am I goin' crazy?"

"Talking to a sleeping guy isn't exactly a sign of crazy...I mean, the doctor's say it might wake him up."

Jack blinked and looked to the doorway surprised to see a teen girl standing there. Jeans and a t-shirt, monogrammed bookbag off one shoulder, school cardigan, single braid. Hazel eyes, reddish brown hair. Fourteen, maybe fifteen. Young enough to still admit to being scared. Old enough to become a woman that will never be scared again. This was Celia Macy, John Macy's daughter.

Jack lifted the corner of his mouth a little, vacating the solitary visitor's chair in the room. He'd never met Celia, but he'd been told that she visited her father from time to time. The time now was nearly midnight.

"I doubt that what I was talking about will encourage him to wake up. Isn't it a little late for you to be here?"

Celia had studied Jack in much the same way as he had her, noting the limp, the way he held his elbow stiffly by his side. Pale complexion, rumpled suit, no-nonsense haircut.

"I haven't met you before," she said finally, eyeing the chair but not moving toward it yet, "I'm Celia."

Jack nodded and thrust out his hand after a beat. "I'm Jack."

Celia shook, her handshake somewhere in the middle between dead fish and making a statement. "I couldn't sleep, and tomorrow's a holiday. Mom said I could come over."

"You're mother lets you ride the subway just before midnight?"

"I took a cab." Celia said, her voice and face finally betraying some of the obstinance and attitude Jack expected out of a kid her age.

"By yourself?"

"I know the cabby, he always drives me. Mom asks for him specifically."

"Huh..."

Celia held his gaze boldly for a few more seconds before she glanced away and finally took the vacant seat. Jack collected the case file, set it on the rolling tray and wheeled the whole thing away. He saved his work before snapping the laptop closed.

When there was nothing left to do but stand and stare, Jack thought for a moment then glanced out the open door at the folding chair in the hall. "I can sit outside if you'd like to be alone."

Celia, gazing at her father without expression, shrugged one shoulder but said nothing. Typical teenager. Somehow it brought him comfort. The first time he'd been forced to see Dr. Bryon, she had suggested that he felt more comfortable in an environment of opposition. She might have been right.

Jack took a few minutes to pack the laptop and case files into his briefcase then quietly turned to leave the room.

"The machines are kinda creepy, y'know so, if you wanted to stay..." Celia didn't look at him but her request was plain. Jack heard plenty of his youngest reflected in the tone of voice.

"You want a soda?"

Another shrug. Jack, being the type of father who could translate teen apathy, left his briefcase tucked just inside the door and pulled the folding chair into the room before he ducked down the hall for a soda and a coffee.


	2. Chapter 2

"My Mom said he used to be really good, y'know? He got on Broadway, supporting roles, but off-Broadway he was a real hit. He was in a coupl'a TV shows too."

"Anything I would know?"

Celia rolled her eyes. "If you watch _really_ old TV yeah probably. Stuff from the 90s."

Jack almost choked on his coffee. He chose not to make the pre-requisite, 'When I was your age' comment, however, proving to himself temporarily that he was not his father.

Celia got a kick out of the gag though and gave him a shy grin.

"Can I ask you a question?" Jack asked. "When were you born?"

Celia flushed immediately, and played with the frayed edge of a cuff. "9/14/2001. Mom delivered early, because of...you know."

Jack nodded. Like every other adult New Yorker alive before 9/11, the day had become a turning point. It reshaped the definition of how life was to be lived. For the children born after that day, or too young for it to have personal impact, it served as an unkind legacy to which they were expected to rise.

Celia shifted in the un-easy chair, tucking her legs beneath her Indian style. "Mom said, Dad wasn't the same after that. He'd been planning to go there...to get half price tickets for a show. He wanted me to love the theatre, even before I was born, so he took Mom to a show once a month. He wanted me to see _CATS_."

Jack groaned softly and Celia perked up at the sound. "I know, right!? Totally lame."

"And then 9/11 happened..." Jack prompted, unable to overlook that the story wasn't finished. That he was closer somehow to something important, necessary.

"Mom and Dad divorced a year later. Right after my birthday." Celia sighed, a little dramatic sigh that was as rehearsed as the story had been. Not a lie, but a tale that she had been told the same way too many times for it to come naturally in her own words.

"Does that upset you?" Jack asked, certain that he knew the answer. When he got the expected shrug he smirked softly and buried the expression in the steaming, bitter coffee he'd gotten from the nurse's station. The nurse on duty, ironically enough, was also steaming and bitter. The comparison made him snort.

The sound drew Celia's attention and she shifted slightly and asked, "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"When were you born?"

Jack smirked ruefully. "Right about when the dinosaurs were wiped out."

Celia grinned. "You wiped out the dinosaurs, huh?"

"Smart aleck."

That earned Jack another grin.

"Hey, don't you have homework or something to do?"

"It's a holiday, remember."

Jack nodded sagely. "Ah...a procrastinator."

"Mom says I wrote the book."

"No offense, but she's giving you too much credit."

Celia's face scrunched up and she gave a, "Huh?"

"Nevermind."

"You know, none of the other guys wear suits. You're not a cop."

"Smart girl."

"Can I see your badge?"

Jack thought for a moment, then shifted on the folding chair and got out his shield, letting the leather protector fall open so that she could see it.

"Can I have it?"

"To keep?" Jack asked.

"To look at."

"Sure."

Celia flopped an open palm over the arm of the chair expectantly.

"I'm an old man. Come over here and get it."

With a dramatic groan Celia stood, swinging long adolescent legs toward the floor.

Jack watched the oxygen line slip around her ankle but he didn't have time to warn her not to move before her leg swept forward and the tube yanked free of the machine.

The beeping did the rest. Celia jumped and shrieked before she realized what she had caught herself on. As Jack rushed forward to reconnect the tube, Celia backed into the corner of the room tucking her arms and legs against her body and staring pale and wide eyed at her father.

The nurses were coming. Jack could hear them scrambling from down the hall. He couldn't fit the tube back into place, and was realizing that a piece was missing. Something like a flange or a fitted rubber nozzle. He had backed away from the machine and was searching the floor when the male night nurse unintentionally shoved him into the wall.

The bitter, steaming female nurse came in on the heels of her younger counterpart, assessed the scene, then lit into Celia without hesitation.

"Stupid, STUPID girl. How many times I gotta tell ya, stay away from them machines. You wanna kill your old man!?"

The push from the male nurse left Jack back pedaling into the corner of the room by the door. The dizziness had been an after effect of the concussion...something that was supposed to be going away, along with the headaches. With it came a flush of heat and sweat that left him nauseous. The poorly made coffee wasn't helping him.

There was a tonal buzz in his ears too that drowned out most of what the female nurse was saying. He did catch the last of her tirade.

"...always sittin' in here like a whore talkin' to them cops. Find your John's somewhere else."

Jack knew she was a bitter old woman, given to seeing the world a certain way. He knew that nothing she said should, in the end, matter, but Celia was hurt. She stood trembling where she was, withering under the woman's diatribe, face drenched with tears. When she didn't leave, the old woman dragged her from the corner with a bony hand and pushed her toward the door.

Celia tried to run into the hall but went face first into the uniformed chest of Jack's replacement.

Officer Harold Dowerty, NYPD, did his best to size up the situation, surprised to see an FBI special agent clinging to the wall, two nurses in the room, and a teenage girl crying against his chest.

"I'll take her.." Jack breathed, finally regaining his equilibrium, enough that he could give up the wall, anyway. "I'll take her. I'll be back in a minute." He repeated, drew in a hard deep breath and forced himself to straighten.

Dowerty managed to peel Celia away, transferring her with gentle hands into Jack's care. Limping, Jack followed the wall with his left hand, his right guiding Celia's elbow, until they had reached the deserted visitor's waiting area just outside ILCU.

Celia was mumbling something over and over, snot mixing with tears as she sputtered, "I didn't mean it. I didn't meant it."

"It's alright, it's ok, just take a seat."

"I didn't mean it. I didn't...I'm not..." The rest was unintelligible. Jack glanced around the room expecting to see a tissue box. This was where weeping relatives met to find some relief, there had to be tissues, but there weren't. Maybe in the hall?

Jack turned to check but the minute the gap between them exceeded a few inches, Celia thrust her hands out and grabbed Jack's coat.

"Please don't go. Please."

"I'm just going to g-"

"No please, don't."

"I'm gonna get some tissues, I'm not-"

"Please don't leave me alone-"

"Celia, I'm getting you something to wipe your face."

Terrified hazel eyes met his, stilling him. "Please..." She said, trailing off as she shook her head in miniscule motions.

Jack was stunned. This wasn't the girl he had been talking to seconds ago. Something had broken, something that an accidental trip over an oxygen line did not explain.

"Agent Malone?"

Jack turned and acknowledged the NYPD officer standing in the doorway.

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Uh...tissues?" Jack asked, receiving a nod before Dowerty dissappeared. When he turned back to Celia she was no longer looking at him.

Her face was stone, cold, eyes directed at the floor. Her lips pursed angrily, making her look older. She drew a wet, shaking breath in through her nose then bit out, "You're Agent Malone?"

"Yeah, Jack Malone." He said, his voice tired. He sat down on the multi-cushioned couch and shook his head when Celia immediately put two feet of space between them.

"You shot my, Dad."

"No."

"You wanted him shot." She said, looking at him.

Jack didn't respond. He couldn't, truthfully, because he didn't know. "He broke the law."

"He was just acting." The girl said, a hiccup interrupting the renewed burst of tears.

"His "act" cost the FBI a lot of man power and time. It's going to cost the city a lot of money to prosecute him. Who do you think is paying for his hospital bill?"

Celia's face tightened with pain and she closed her eyes, holding tightly to the agony she'd been harboring.

It didn't surprise him that Celia hadn't been told that her father had attempted suicide. Judging by the carefully crafted news story, he supposed it was reasonable for her to come to the conclusion that a man named Agent Malone had shot her father. His team had done just enough research into the man's life to provide an acceptable profile. Once it was no longer clearly a case for his Missing Person's Unit, the case was given to the local PD.

IA was looking into the man's hire, but...it wasn't his case. Which is why he shouldn't have been babysitting the man. Why he should never have come into contact with the man's daughter. Why she was suddenly afraid of him.

Jack sighed and swiped a hand over his face, then pushed back to his feet.

When he stepped into the hall Dowerty was behind the reception counter looking unsuccessful in his search. Jack surprised himself by reaching for the exact cupboard in which the tissues were kept, swinging the door open and snatching a floral box.

"How did-"

Jack just shook his head and stepped back into the visitor's waiting room long enough to set the tissue box on the couch. Celia didn't acknowledge his presence.

As he shuffled down the hall, back toward Macy's room, Dowerty shadowed him. "She gonna be alright?"

Jack shook his head and paused at the door jamb, peering into the room. The situation had calmed. Both nurses were hovering comfortably over Macy, checking vitals and connections and numbers. Bitter and Steaming seemed to have run out of at least the steam.

"Are _you_ gonna be alright?" Dowerty asked, the intensity of his concern surprising the FBI agent.

"I look that bad?"

"Medically speaking, you and Macy could be twins." The officer said.

Jack smirked. "I guess it's my bed time."

They waited until the nurses had left, the male nurse pausing long enough to reassure them that their "prisoner" was still alive. Jack reached into the room to snag his briefcase then turned to go. He'd made about two steps down the hall before he turned back.

"Can you uh...check in on Celia. Nurse Ratchett seems to have something against her."

"Yeah, no problem, Agent Malone."

"Thanks. Have a good night."

When he passed the waiting room Celia was laying on the couch. The TV across the room had been turned on and she was staring at The Weather Channel. She didn't look up when he passed.


	3. Chapter 3

Five nights later Celia was in the room when Jack arrived, curled up in the "easy" chair, her feet tucked under a blanket, a blank book open on one arm. Jack caught a glimpse of a few pencil swoops before the cover snapped closed and hazel eyes greeted his.

"Hi." Jack said stopping by the folding chair that none of his predecessors had seen fit to move.

Celia watched him for a second, then looked away. Right about when Jack decided she wasn't going to respond to him, Celia gave a weak, "Hi."

As she turned back to her sketch book a lock of hair fell, shielding her eyes. Jack shook his head and glanced into the hall at the officer he was replacing. A very young newby, standing at the nurse's desk chatting up a cheeky brunette with dark wine colored lipstick and brown eyes. She looked like someone Jack had seen recently in a commercial. Hell, maybe that was her. Everybody wore more than one hat these days. Walking past the smitten officer to get to the coffee burning in the waiting room, Jack muttered. "Officer Hamilton, diligent as ever."

By the time Jack returned to the room the blushing brunette was studiously working on patient blood workups and Hamilton was inside Macy's room. Jack got a meek greeting from the cop and smirked to himself. "You're off duty in two minutes, Officer, why don't you go ask her if she wants to have a drink with you later?"

With a relieved laugh and a grin the young man nodded his thanks, and left the room, once more swaggering up to the nurses' desk.

Jack felt Celia's eyes resting on him as he settled into the chair, groaning through the aches and pains of getting shot...and getting old. The first sip of coffee was a relief. He'd put caffeine off all day knowing he'd overdo it once he got to the hospital. It was his first cup in thirty-six hours. Jack breathed it in, relished the burn and the bitterness, and let his head rest back, gently, against the wall behind him, closing his eyes.

There was a new case. There were always new cases. Viv was lead on this one. An old contact had called, a woman...Jack couldn't remember her name. She worked for an underground abuse victims network and had disappeared. Instead of calling the police the woman's friend had come straight to Vivian. Once it was made clear that the only help Viv could give would be the official help of the FBI, and there really was no way to keep it 'off the record', Tina Kline agreed to give all the help she could.

The missing person was...crap, still couldn't remember it. Jack lifted his head, took a sip of coffee then opened his eyes to find Celia facing him. She'd turned so that her feet were propped against one arm of the chair, the sketch pad resting on her legs like an easel. She'd been drawing him, he could only imagine, and she looked like she'd been caught staring when she met his eyes.

"What you got there?" He asked.

"Sketch book." Celia said, her eyes slipping back to her work, her pencil busy again.

Jack carefully rolled his eyes. The headaches hadn't gotten any better, and for some reason sarcasm made them worse. He reached down for his briefcase, snapped it open and pulled out the files he'd brought with him. He'd just settled his reading glasses on his nose when he heard Celia snort. The look he gave her over the rim of his glasses further amused her.

Jack turned his attention back to the reams of information and muttered, "Next time you have a bad hair day don't expect my sympathy."

Celia's chortles died slowly and soon the room was filled with the light beep of life support, the scratch of Celia's pencil on the paper, and the occasional flutter when Jack turned a page.

Jack sank into the case, forgetting that Celia was in the room until an hour or so later when her pencil toppled to the floor. He looked up to see her asleep, somehow comfortable enough to pass out while resembling a pretzel. Jack tried to remember if he'd ever been that young. The only thing that came to mind was soccer, and how he didn't play enough of it anymore.

Jack looked back to the stack of papers, then considered the condition of his bladder and the bathroom three feet to his right. That business used up about five minutes, then another five minutes for a second cup of coffee and he was right back in his chair. Or would have been if Celia hadn't been sitting there.

"You can have that one..." Celia said softly, pointing at the easy chair with the eraser of her pencil. "It's a little more comfy."

Jack was surprised, but simply nodded, lowering himself into the semi-cushioned, upholstered nightmare. He set his styrofoam cup of coffee on the stand near the chair and rubbed his eyes.

"Are you here every night?"

Jack spoke through the end of his yawn, "Friday through Sunday, ten to six shift."

"Do they pay you for this?"

"They better." Jack muttered, carefully crossing his ankles.

"So that's why you're doing this."

"Doing what?"

"Watching my Dad."

Jack considered the body in the bed, unchanged, unmoved unless someone else moved him. "No." He said finally. "That's not why."

"Then why?"

Jack put up a finger then said, "Let me ask you this first."

Celia shifted, the chair creaked, and she waited.

"It's a Friday night, you're a teenager with, I assume, myriad friends. Why are you here tonight?"

Celia dragged one leg up on the seat, tucking her ankle behind her knee. She considered her father's rising and falling chest and softly replied, "Somebody oughta be here, you know...when he wakes up or...if he doesn't."

"What about your Mom?"

"She doesn't have time. And she doesn't like hospitals. Or my Dad, really."

Jack nodded. "So you just come up here and draw, or do homework, and wait, right?"

Celia shrugged.

"Not a lot of kids your age would do that."

They were silent for a few minutes, Celia squirming a little under the unexpected attention. Finally she swung her feet to the ground, thankfully this time as far as she could get from the tubes and wires. "I'm gonna get a soda or something."

Jack nodded, and that seemed to be the permission she needed to get up and leave the room. Jack listened to the quiet floor, remembering other hospital stays, both as a visitor and as a patient. The buzz of his phone shook him out of his revery. It was Sam.

"Jack, where are you?" She asked, with cautious concern in her voice.

Jack was opening his mouth, prepared to lie and say that he was at home when Sam continued, "You're not at home."

"How do you know I'm not home?"

"I'm in your apartment."

"What are you doing there?"

"I brought you some Chinese, I thought you could use some company."

Jack blinked in surprise, his mouth hanging open for a moment before he said, "Where's Finn?"

"They call them "babysitters" and you're ignoring the question."

"I'm not ignoring it, I'm evading it."

"Because..."

Jack sighed. "Because...I'm moonlighting."

"Moonlighting?" Sam paused, just as an announcement for a code blue in another part of the ILCU blared across the floor.

Celia appeared in the doorway, ducking out of the way of running nurses and a crash cart, as Sam asked, "Are you at a hospital?"

"Yes, I'm just doing a favor for some guys. It's no big deal. And, Chinese would have been great. I-I'm grateful for the thought."

"A favor? Jack, you were shot, twice. You're supposed to be taking it easy. What could possibly be so important that-"

"I'm sorry, Sam, there's something going down I have to uh..."

"Jack, don't you dare hang up-"

Jack winced and hung up. He'd call her back, in a few minutes. Once Celia was looking less panicked and the commotion in the other room had calmed down.

"You alright?"

Celia was still standing in the doorway, hugging herself and trembling slightly as she peered around the corner. Jack stood, grabbed the blanket that he had mushed into the seat when he sat down, and limped to the doorway, gently laying the cover over her shoulders.

Celia jumped a little, surprised, then accepted the blanket and leaned against the jamb. They stood together in the doorway, watching silently as an elated mother wept with joy.

Her young son had woken up.


	4. Chapter 4

There was a music box playing. According to Mrs. Leeser, the song was from her son's favorite cartoon. How she had found the custom music box, she hadn't said, but since her son Hunter had opened his eyes and quietly said, "Momma.", all he had wanted was to hear the music box. It had been playing ever since.

The whole floor had gone silent, listening enraptured as the sounds of fifteen thin metal tines pinged without resolution in the narrow hospital room.

It had reminded Jack of the two music box/jewelry boxes his wife had purchased for their daughters one Christmas.

"Both boxes had this plastic figurine in it, wearing a fluffy tutu and turning endlessly. For a year I had to wind up both of those things or my girls wouldn't go to sleep."

Curled up once again in the easy chair Celia smiled softly, her eyes lost somewhere between the floor and the mattress of her father's bed. "I had one. It was my Gram's. It had those Japanese dragon things on the cover and it was just the metal wheel on the inside. It played something classical I think. Over and over..."

"And over and over..." Jack smirked, gesturing vaguely toward the hallway.

Celia took in a breath. "There's a guy.." She began, pausing mid-sentence the way every teenager Jack had ever met did when they were sharing something they really cared about. "...he's got a shop in Brooklyn. He repairs watches. Like...really old watches. And also music boxes. He'll take in old ones...find 'em in dumps or state sales..."

"Estate sales?"

"Yeah, and fix 'em up." Celia dawdled a bit, picking at the lint on the blanket. "I found one. It was set inside one of those big rocks that look like diamonds on the inside..."

Jack watched Celia's hands mimic the size and shape of the rock, then guessed, "A geode?"

"Yeah! I think. Anyway...it played this song, Space Oddity." Celia went back to the lint and sighed. "When I was little I used to listen to that one every time I visited the store."

"Sounds like you went there alot."

"My Dad and I were together then, before Mom came back." Celia turned and watched the still face of her father. "When he wasn't rehearsing for a show he had a lot of free time." When Celia looked back at Jack she looked guilty. Jack had seen the same look coming from his youngest and it tore at his heart.

"Came back?" He asked gently, schooling his voice so that the question had little weight to it.

Celia gave him a guarded look, then pursed her lips together thinking long enough that Jack figured she wasn't going to answer.

"I don't really know what happened," She said finally, barely above a whisper. "I was too little. Dad just said..." There was a sniffle, then a tear that Celia hastily wiped away. "He said, Mom was different. That she was an angel and that somebody else had needed her for a while."

"This was...after 9/11?"

Celia nodded.

"And when she came back...what did she say?"

"S-she was sorry she left. She hadn't meant to be gone that long. That she loved me. She wanted to be my Mom."

"You live with just _her_ now?" Jack asked.

Celia nodded. "Mom said Dad was cheating on her. Dad said it wasn't true, but Mom said he was obssessed with some woman and she kicked him out."

Jack expected to hear anger, but what he heard was resentment. Pain, a little fear, but mostly regret and maybe shame. Shame, he realized, that was partially directed at her father.

"And how long ago was that?"

Celia swallowed hard, breathing rough around the emotion that was tightening her throat. "When he started making the movies." She said, her lips and jaw so rigid that neither moved as she spoke.

"The movies about me...and Samantha Spade."

Celia nodded. "I helped him put them online...and then Mom saw them...she didn't believe that it was Dad, just with a lot of makeup on. She said it was sick." Celia's face pinched and she watched her father, tears spilling over her cheeks. "That he wasn't fit to be my Dad. But he was just acting. It was just acting!"

Jack didn't say anything. He reminded himself that it wasn't his case. This wasn't an interrogation. She wasn't a witness. The truth was important, but not in that moment.

Jack let her calm down a bit then asked, "Does your Mom do any acting?"

Celia's damp hazel eyes met his. She blinked away the last of her tears then shook her head, rubbing her nose with her sleeve. "Mom's a singer, and a dancer."

"She's in a show?"

Celia hedged, "Sort of."

Jack nodded and let it drop. "And what about you?" When she gave him a blank look he added, "Any acting?"

She gave a shy smile and shook her head, blushing. "I'm too scared. And my memorizing stinks. Dad wanted me to act in one of- with him in a show, but I got so scared I couldn't remember anything."

"You like being..behind the scenes." Jack offered.

Celia shifted and for a split second Jack got a glimpse of the woman Celia was to become. "Yeah. I like getting to decide how the background is gonna look, and where the lights go and how long each scene is going to be. Y'know, up close and personal or from far away."

Jack nodded. "It's an important job."

"Have _you_ ever done any acting?"

Jack hesitated for a moment before he said, "In a manner of speaking."

He thought about the last time he had gone undercover. Only a year ago. His cover hadn't lasted long, but it hadn't needed to. He'd gone in with Sam, disguised as a husband and wife seeking help from a fertility clinic. During the consultation they'd found and talked to a missing clinician who had moved out of her husband's home without informing him.

They'd established that the woman was safe, healthy and had left the home of her own freewill. They'd strongly admonished that she should tell someone close to her the next time she chose to leave and save the tax payers some money. Then they had left.

Gone for Italian take out.

Eaten half of it. Gone to bed early.

The next morning foreplay had somehow turned into a fight. Sam had left, proclaiming she wasn't angry, just tired. Eventually Jack ate the rest of the take out cold.

Life was like that.

The end of Jack's shift coincided with the change of the nursing staff creating a hum of energy and commotion around six am. That hum energized Jack as he collected the scatter of files he'd eventually worked on through the night. It also woke Celia.

Jack offered to buy her breakfast in the hospital cafeteria before he left. Celia, after checking her cell and finding three texts and two calls from her mother, declared she had to get home. Jack offered to share a cab with her, to save her the fare.

They left the hospital together, blinking at the summer sun already rising in the sky. It was going to be a hot day.

With the cabbie waiting at the curb Jack insisted on walking Celia into the building. Grandiose chivalry aside, Jack was doing everything in his power to avoid falling asleep with a cabbie willing to take advantage of a sleeping passenger. The more movement and the fewer long gaps of time sitting, the better.

They climbed three sets of stairs before Celia stopped at a landing, stuck her key in a rickety door lock and ducked into her apartment. Before she could get the door shut again Jack heard an angry voice on the other side demand, "Who is that man?"

Jack groaned and waited, listening to the exchange as it escalated, ending with the apartment door sweeping wide open. When Celia's mother's pale face appeared, Jack's badge was dangling a few feet in front of it, Jack's tired face behind it.

"Jack, this is Dee, Dee, Jack..." Celia's voice came from deep in the apartment laced with an attitude that Jack forgot the teenager could have.

"Mrs. Macy-"

"Delano, I dropped the Macy. Is my daughter in trouble?"

Her voice was deeply accented, Boston, Jersey and New York rolled into one. Her pale skin wasn't unhealthy, just the result of working inside and at night most of the time. Jack couldn't see tracks, scabs or any of the other easy-to-spot indicators of drug use. Ms. Delano was tired and strung out, but she wasn't a junkie.

"She's not in trouble. I'm part of a twenty-four hour rotation of security at the hospital. My shift had ended and I offered to share a cab with her."

The words did nothing to reassure Ms. Delano. Jack could see she was struggling to connect the dots. That told him two things. One, that Dee Delano nay Macy wasn't going to trust Jack, no matter what he said. And two, Celia didn't really have her mother's permission to be at the hospital.

"I wanted to make sure she got home safely. Now that she is, I'd like to get to my home. If you'll excuse me."

Brevity, that was the key, Jack told himself. He turned to leave and was most of the way down the first flight of stairs when he heard the apartment door slam shut, hard. The silence that followed made the click of the deadbolt even louder.

Jack shook his head and finished his descent, stepped into his cab and asked that he be dropped off at a coffee place a block from his apartment. He managed to stay awake long enough to pick up a smoothie (after a night of coffee he figured he should try and make amends to his abused stomach), walk to his apartment door, open and lock it again, and collapse on his couch.

The smoothie never made it out of the cup.


	5. Chapter 5

The phone woke him. He couldn't have been asleep that long, certainly not long enough. It took him a minute to figure out what day it was, what hour, and where he was. By the time he'd oriented the call had gone to voicemail. Caller ID told him it was Vivian calling. Her second call of the morning apparently.

Jack took a moment to breathe, decide how awake he was, wonder why his stomach was screaming at him. Then he called Vivian back.

"Jack...sleeping in today?" Vivian sounded like she'd been on the verge of worry.

"Had a long night." Jack grumbled, "What's goin' on?"

"I thought you should know that Louise Yarman's body was found early this morning in the East River."

Yarman, the missing woman, the battered women advocate that Vivian's friend had reported missing. "Oh..God, Viv, I'm sorry."

Vivian let a moment of silence pass between them and Jack could see her in his mind's eye. She was quiet when most people filled the air with useless words. It was a part of her vast wisdom, a part that he had always liked.

"The first officer on the scene ruled it a possible suicide, but the ME was good enough to get back to me."

"Medical Examiner working on a Saturday?"

"Small miracles." Vivian quipped dryly. "He said she had been strangled manually by an assailant, sexually assaulted, then tossed off a bridge. The impact to her body was post mortem."

Jack could see the crime in his head, even though he'd never met Louise. The cruel horrible irony of a violent death for a woman who had previously succeeded in escaping the violent life. "And the case?"

Vivian sighed. "NYPD is taking it. I offered to be the one to inform the family but..."

"Can't find any?"

"No." More silence. "I...I thought you would want to know."

"Thanks. Get some rest, Viv."

Another silence, this one with weight to it. Jack could feel it like a slice of lightening zapping his ear.

"That's the other reason I called. I...was hoping that you would approve some time off."

Speechless for a moment, Jack stuttered. "Of course, just put the request on my desk."

"I'm talking about a significant amount of time."

"Ok...how much time are we talking?"

"A year."

Jack took in a breath but it caught in his throat. He pushed himself up on the couch until he could swing his sore leg to the floor. The room spun a little, then settled. "Could we...um, could we meet for coffee or something. Talk this over?"

"Sure." The way Viv's voice filled the single word it sounded like that had been what she'd hoped for all along.

"There's a coffee place near my apartment. Meet me there?"

By the time Jack hung up the phone he was already mostly undressed. He could've taken the time to cover the dressings on his arm and leg before showering, but instead he ripped them off and let the hot water wash over the wounds themselves.

It hurt, but the hurt was good.

He could've covered them up again, or at least laid bandaids over the stitches so that they didn't pull against his clothes. Somehow there wasn't time.

He'd carefully pulled on most of a suit before he remembered that it was Saturday. Changing took more time, effort, discomfort. By the time he left his apartment he was sweating, red in the face, and hungry. Blue jeans, a white undershirt, a business shirt mostly unbuttoned. Sneakers...he couldn't remember the last time he'd worn sneakers.

Vivian already had a table and two coffees when he walked in the door. She raised a single brow at his hair, smirking quietly. He pulled her up from the table and enveloped her in a brotherly hug before sitting down and groaning softly into the ceramic cup. Vivian waited for his first sip to eek into his blood stream, looking just as tired and worn as Jack felt.

"Late night?"

"Couple of 'em. Got another one tonight." Jack met her eyes under the weight of his brow line.

"Moonlighting?"

"Sam talked to you."

Viv nodded. "Everything alright?"

Jack set the cup on the table and watched the black brew settle. "Working on it."

Vivian continued to watch him for a moment more before accepting his answer. The two sipped at their coffee in total silence for a minute or two before Jack set his cup down and said, "So, a year."

Vivian nodded, meeting his eyes. "Marcus and I were hoping to be retiring together this year. I, optimistically, thought that I would be in a position of leadership five years ago. Neither of us thought I would have a heart condition. Hospital bills. And then there's Reggie.."

"How's he doin?"

Vivian just shook her head.

"Viv...the only kind of extended leave I can offer you is a sabbatical. At best you'd be cut to half pay."

"Unless I was still working part time for the Bureau."

"What kind of hours can you give me?"

"No, not here Jack."

It took him a moment, then a mental picture of a memo flashed through his brain. It'd been a "send to all" email that he'd ignored but for the subject line. Teaching opportunities for senior agents at Quantico. Interested parties were to send their qualifications to their supervisors. He hadn't expected to get any participation from his team, so he'd ignored it. "Quantico." He said.

"We'd be closer to Reggie, the hours would be better, the stress reduced. It'd give us time...to think about things."

Jack leaned forward, started to rest his weight on his elbows then felt the painful tug on his stitches and shifted, wincing. 'Fewer chances of being shot by janitors...' he thought vaguely to himself. "What sort of qualifications do you have...or need?"

"I talked with the Director of Education there. As far as subject matter is concerned he would love to have someone representing Missing Persons. Dropping your name into the conversation wasn't as regrettable as I thought it would be." The wry smile that touched Vivian's lips when Jack reacted lit her face unexpectedly.

Jack could see the time, energy and hope that she'd invested into this new direction. He was instantly paranoid that she would like the teaching job too much and never come back. In the same moment he hoped that would be the case, and that she would have all the happiness and peace of mind she deserved for her years of putting up with him.

Jack sighed through his nose, staring at the mosaic pattern on the table top as he sorted through his reservations, coming to the one that he couldn't disregard.

"Any recommendations for a replacement...if this goes through?"

"If this goes through..." Viv smiled softly, knowingly. "I have a few."

"Young?"

"Mmhmm."

"Eager?" Jack growled, his brow beginning to furrow.

"Some of them." She teased.

Jack groaned, trying not to smile at the strange giggle coming from his long time partner.

"Jack..." The way she said it drew Jack's attention back quickly. Viv laid her hand against his and squeezed. "Thank you." She said, her eyes a little wetter than usual.

Jack covered her hand, pressed his lips together to respond, and found that he couldn't.

That night Celia didn't appear at the hospital, leaving Jack alone with the weight of Vivian's possible departure, and a half-dozen personnel files of wet-behind-the-ear agents eager to join his team. It was not a good night.

When morning came Jack was replaced and made the long, slow trudge out of the hospital. He hailed a cab, gave the driver his address, then, on a whim, changed his mind and gave him Celia's address.

Even before they hit her block he could see the pillar of smoke. Jack was forced to get out at the corner. Two trucks were on the scene and judging by the power of the blaze more were on their way, so Jack paid the cabby, to clear the road. He searched the faces of the groggy neighbors standing around dazed, more and more panicked when he realized that neither Celia nor her mother were there.

He used his badge to pass through the police barricade and marched up to the ambulances demanding the names of their occupants. An old woman clutching a terrified cat and a gang banger that looked too high to realize what was happening to him. But no Dee Delano, and no Celia Macy.

The firefighters were clustered around the truck, drenched in sweat, covered in soot. They'd already been in the building and didn't look too eager to return.

"How far up did you get?" He asked first one, then another, getting mixed answers. None of them had managed to get near Celia's floor. The fire was hottest there. Had probably started there.

Jack wanted to stay until the blaze was out. He wanted to be invincible so that he could force his way into the building and make sure Celia wasn't trapped alive somewhere. He wanted to save Celia, he realized, but he couldn't. He couldn't save her now. He couldn't, nay didn't even try, to save her father.

He'd lost another one.


	6. Chapter 6

Jack was at the scene of the fire for an hour. Not as a participant, not as a victim, not in any official capacity at all. It frustrated him. He'd never been a sight seer. Never one to stand still if he could be going and doing. That was the benefit of being in charge. You didn't stand around waiting for some higher up to get off his ass and decide what was going to get done that day. _You_ made the decisions.

The first decision he made was to walk away. When it had finally sunk in that he didn't have to be there. Once again this had nothing, officially, to do with him. He turned on the sidewalk and limped down the street. He went three blocks before his leg started to burn and he had to sit down.

The sun was hot, reflecting harshly against the windows of the building. It reminded him of a fire he'd studied for a criminal profiling class.

The fire had been ruled arson; the flames started near a window where there were no electrical outlets, appliances or other sources of accidental sparks. The man they arrested, as it turned out, was in fact an arsonist. But he hadn't actually set flame to the accelerant. The sun had done the job for him.

The apartment building was old, the last hold out on a block of buildings that had been torn down and revitalized. The ring of shiny new windows surrounding the old building had turned the natural light from the sun into a powerful laser like beam that set fire to the curtains.

The arsonist had actually suffered third degree burns as a result of the unhappy change in schedule.

Jack thought about Vivian, about the sorts of things she would be teaching to the bright young, curse their energy, up and coming FBI agents of the future. About how when he started in Missing Persons it looked like a cardboard box compared to the Bond car that it was today.

He thought about Celia. About the future as a cinematographer that he had envisioned for her briefly. About that shop...where was it, Brooklyn? The geode music box.

Jack got to his cell phone and worked the ever shifting screen with awkward, thick thumbs. Google, yes, watch repair and music boxes, yes. Brooklyn? Yes! It was still there. He had an address, a cab and a tiny glimmer of hope; all he had left of his fading redemption was potentially forty minutes away in morning rush hour traffic.

The store had opened ten minutes before Jack got there. The shop fit in well with the artsy, upscale look of the street. What had once been factories and street cars and inches of soot on every surface was now...Victorian.

Jack realized how much he smelled like smoke as he stepped out of the cab. Not the pleasant aroma of wood smoke either but the stench of plastic, nylon and melting glass. He put off entering the shop, standing instead at the window and peering in, the flare from the sun forcing him to shield his eyes as he pressed in close.

Watches, grandfather clocks, alarm clocks. They dangled from the ceiling, cluttered shelves, danced around moving displays. Perfectly preserved, repaired and unwanted.

When Jack stepped into the shop, he stayed at the threshold, trying to get his bearings. A voice responded to the bell tinkling over his head.

"It's a lot to take in, sir, take your time." A man said, his voice grating like metal on metal.

If Jack, for insanity's sake, had tried to replace every clock face with a human face, there would be bodies stacked ceiling to floor. Jack shook his head. "This is incredible."

"Hmm." The sound grumbled from deeper in the store. "A lifetime of work, I can only hope it would be."

Jack took a cautionary step onto the shop floor, then another, almost afraid that if he didn't watch his feet he'd step on something ticking.

"I don't wind them...customers do...some because they think it's funny, some to see if the things still work. I stopped worryin' about it years ago. Now..." The voice paused, Jack rounded a corner, and to his surprise he saw John Macy standing behind a work bench.

No...not John Macy. This man was decades older. Macy Sr. It had to be. The old man sighed. "I think of the ticking as heartbeats, echos of the people that once cared about them." The clocksmith stopped speaking, set his tools down and stepped out from behind the counter. "What can I get for you today, young man."

Jack couldn't help but smile. At being called young, at the man's eccentricities so reminiscent of his own father's time, of the shop full of time pieces that in fact brought time to a stand still. Before he could describe the music box he had spotted it, setting on a shelf at waist level behind the work bench.

"That music box, is it for sale?"

The clocksmith didn't turn or look. "It's on layaway..." He said, dark brown eyes unblinking.

"It's been paid for?" Jack asked.

"Mostly."

"What would happen if I paid off the rest..."

The clocksmith considered the question, a guarded, paternal look overcoming his face that confirmed for Jack exactly who this man was, Celia's grandfather.

"You're John Macy, Sr." Jack said.

"And you're a cop." The older man sighed, his face closing down like a closing night curtain before he turned his back and went behind his work bench again.

"Not a cop, per say. Right now I'm...I'm concerned...for Celia."

At the mention of the name, Macy Sr.'s head jerked and his eyes met Jack's.

"I'm with the FBI. John Macy..." Jack thought for a moment, remembering that the case against John Macy Jr. was still active. That Jack wasn't supposed to have been doing most of what had occupied the past week. "...used to work in our offices. I met Celia when she visited her father in the hospital."

The more Jack said, the more Macy Sr. seemed to ease the stiffness of his shoulders. Finally he asked, "What do you want with Celia?"

Praying for the answer he wanted, Jack's posture wilted a bit as he said, "I just wanted to make sure she was ok."

There was a pause, too long of a pause, before Macy Sr. said. "What are you talking about?"

Jack winced and closed his eyes. He shouldn't be there. He wasn't authorized...wasn't in any capacity to be the one to tell Macy Sr. of the fire...

"Celia's in the back.


	7. Chapter 7

For a moment the two men stared at each other. Then John Macy Sr. broke the silence, shouting, "Celia. Come on out here for a sec, hon."

A bright voice sounded from behind a swinging diner style door, the heavy wood swept open and Jack stared blinking at a fifteen-year-old girl that he had never seen before. She was taller than _his_ Celia, dark brown hair with black highlights. She wore glasses and braces.

"You recognize this guy?" Macy Sr. asked, thick arms crossed over a barrel chest that defied his age.

The teenaged stranger before him looked him over, crazy hair to scuffed shoes before she shook her head.

"You're Celia Macy?" Jack blurted. "Born September 14, 2001?"

The girl nodded then gave her grandfather an uncomfortable glance.

"Father, John Macy Jr. Mother, Dee Delano Macy?"

"M-my Mom's name was Rose..." Celia 2 said, her voice dropping to a whisper.

"Was!?" Jack asked, with more force than he'd intended.

"Alright, you're wearing out your welcome unless you explain why you're here and show me a badge or a shield or something..." Macy Sr. jumped in, putting an arm around his trembling grandchild.

Macy was genuinely disturbed and angry. Celia 2 was on verge of tears, leaning into her grandfather, scared.

Jack put his free hand up, the hand that hadn't been turning white knuckled around the handle of his brief case, and produced his badge.

Mr. Macy eyed it skeptically but handed it back with a look of reluctant resignation on his face. "Celia's mom died before she gave birth to Celia. They kept Rose alive, on life support until they could be sure that Celia would survive outside the womb. She was born two months premature."

Jack's heart was racing. His head was beginning to swim and pound and he could feel the bright, shining walls of brand new buildings crowding in on his lone apartment house. Threatening to shoot laser beams at his gasoline soaked curtains.

"Your son, Mr. Macy, did he remarry?"

The older man nodded. "When Celia was eight, seven years ago."

"And her name?"

Macy's eyes widened and the look he gave Jack made him feel like a dunce. "Dee Delano Macy..", the old man said impatiently.

"And that music box...who is it on layaway for?"

"Dee's daughter..."

"And her name?" Jack asked, breathless.

"Jennifer..." Celia, the real Celia, said. "But I don't know where she is. We don't see each other ever. We don't even go to the same school."

The headache came back then, flooding from the back of his skull to the front, squeezing like a vice around his head until he thought sure that his eyes would pop out. He must have swayed. Macy took a step toward him, looking more concerned for his merchandise than Jack.

"Thank you..." Jack muttered in a whisper. "Thank you for your time."

Jack managed to make it outside without having to buy anything. He sat down on the steps of the shop, landing hard enough that his coccyx stung. Celia was Jennifer. Jennifer had lied and there were too many whys. What frightened Jack the most in that moment was that Jennifer might have died in the fire, and he would never get any answers.

Jack remembered the confusion Dee Delano had expressed when he tried to explain where Ce-...Jennifer had been. Even calling Jennifer, Celia had to have confused her. Or...or had Jennifer done this before? Gone out pretending to be her step-sister.

On the cab ride to his place Jack went over the conversations in his head, fitting the new information in with the lies and realizing the phenomenal intricacies of the make-believe world that Jennifer had knowingly, or unknowingly, created to make her lies or fantasies work. What was most important was that the real Celia Macy had been omitted from the fantasy all together.

Jack walked in a daze to his apartment door and stood before it, lost in the wood grain, endlessly feeling his pockets for his keys. The search became synonymous with his newest query, where was Jennifer Delano? When he finally reached his hand out and tested the doorknob, out of frustration or exhaustion, Jack found the answer to both his questions.

His keys were in his apartment, and so was Jennifer. But the young woman standing at the end of a line of rose petals wasn't a fifteen-year-old with a hero worship complex for her step-father.

The voice that purred at him as he walked in the door was mature, and darkly exquisite. The room was lit solely with candles, the window shades drawn tight. Jennifer Delano had bobbed her hair, her makeup done up perfectly to represent the forties. The floor length, sheer dressing gown only did so much to hide the lingerie she wore under it.

"It's about time you got home."


	8. Chapter 8

Her hair was blonde, her voice the unforgettable purr of Marilyn Monroe. Objectively, she looked good. Jack's headache raged and he would have swayed had he not still been clinging to the door. In that moment all Jack wanted was sleep. He didn't want to wade through the disturbed psyche of this child. He considered leaving and curling up in the hallway. Maybe she'd get bored and go home.

The word home reminded him of why he stunk, and where he had been all morning. She didn't have a home anymore.

Jack's eyes scraped around the room, taking in the myriad candles. He was certain he didn't own that many candles. Where had they come from?

Jennifer was slinking across the floor toward him. Her approach made him aware of the strange scents in his apartment that were overpowering his own, the music playing gently in the background. The height difference between himself and Jennifer, the only thing about her that hadn't changed completely.

"Take off your coat, baby.." She said breathlessly, long, red manicured fingernails reaching for his jacket.

Jack jerked away, his hand finally leaving the doorknob to fend her off. "Stop."

"But I want to make it all better, baby." Jennifer purred.

Jack moved away from the door and blew out the first three candles he came to. He made a bee-line for the windows, ripping the shades open and scrambling at the locks that secured the windows when they were closed. The frame screeched angrilly when he forced the window open. Hot city air rushed in, along with the blare of cab horns and the perpetual beep and bustle of construction.

Jack detached himself from his briefcase and turned to face the room, and Jennifer. "How'd you get my keys?"

"You gave 'em to me, Baby."

"Stop lying! And drop the sex kitten act."

At first Jennifer started to pout, then she smiled indulgently. "You think I'm a sex kitten?"

Jack growled and put out more candles, slapping the sound system off as he passed it. The table in the dining room was set, more candles lit. A shining, viscous lump of black sat in a serving dish surrounded by Ritz crackers. Caviar? She'd gone all out. More roses disappeared toward the bedroom and the sight of them made Jack want to vomit.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Jack demanded, before he launched into another attempt to destroy everything Jennifer had changed in his castle.

She was petulant now, bright red lips in full purse, arms crossed strategically to have the most impact on her breasts. "A girls gotta do, what a girls gotta do." She said, losing her mature sensuality. Devolving into the insecure teenager that Jack recognized.

The less she tried to seduce him, the less of a threat she became. The exhaustion that had been plaguing him for weeks settled in and slowed his rampage. Still, Jack didn't stop moving until every candle had been doused and he had snapped on the lights in the living room.

Jennifer had since made a nest of her gown and the petals in the middle of the floor; she sat ripping each into tiny shreds.

"Where are your clothes?"

The question got a teenaged grunt of protest and Jennifer rolled her eyes hard. "In the bathroom."

"Get changed, now." Jack barked.

Jennifer's face began to close down, even the act of the petulant teenager easing out of her. Her look darkened and then went blank and she finally rose to her feet in one fluid motion and walked like a ghost to the bathroom.

Jack watched her go, felt the tiniest relief in his headache and closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall. He needed her in custody. Somewhere where she couldn't hurt herself, and he could have access to the answers he desperately needed. He had reason enough. She had either stolen his keys or broken in. That was a crime. He could charge her temporarily and have her in FBI custody.

Until he could find her mother. If her mother was still living.

Jack pulled out his cell and went to the open window sitting at the ledge while he thought about who he would call. He needed a witness to this. Someone who would understand the circumstances and act as a his partner in the arrest. He hated to do it to her, but the only person he could think to call was Vivian.

The phone rang twice before she picked up.

"Viv..." Jack paused...hell, how was he going to explain this, even to her? "Can you do me a favor?"

Vivian was silent for a moment, then chuckled. "If it can count toward my freedom, I'd be happy to."

Jack understood the sentiment the way it was intended and smirked at the street below. "I..uh, I seem to have attracted some attention from John Macy's step-daughter."

Jack waited, giving Viv time to deconstruct the names and relationships. "Jack..." She began, building alarm and concern in her voice.

"Listen, Vivian, I swear I'll explain everything in detail when you get here. She's...she broke into my apartment. I would call the uni's and have them pick her up but the way the apartment looks right now..."

Vivian groaned on the other end and Jack could envision the look she was giving him from across town. Finally she sighed, and Jack smirked. "I'm on my way. Should I come armed?"

Jack chuckled, "No..I...I think she'll come willing-"

A hand landed on his shoulder followed by heat and ice that sliced into Jack's back between the lowest two ribs on his left side. Jack's body went rigid and he bit his tongue in surprise before he was on his feet, his body unconsciously helping him to flee. He flung his left hand back, his palm closing around the sharp point of a blade that felt like it was a foot wide. The blade was yanked from his back, slicing into his palm as Jack turned to find Jennifer's pale, determined face inches from his.

She caught him behind his neck, forced her lips against his then stabbed him again. This time Jack caught the knife by the handle and managed to prevent her from pulling it out.

He was going down, sinking to his knees despite the grip Jennifer had on his neck and the knife. When she realized she wasn't going to get the knife back, Jennifer sank with Jack and tried to push the knife in deeper.

Jack couldn't keep a grip on it. His hand was slick with his own blood and he was losing muscle integrity. His other hand was mirroring Jennifer's, gripping at the base of her neck, trying to hold her back, breaking the unnatural kiss.

Jack shifted tactics and grabbed a handful of hair...brown again. She'd been wearing a wig before, he realized distantly. He pulled, twisted, yanked until Jennifer was screeching in pain, both her hands now occupied trying to get Jack to let go.

She was screaming at him, but Jack kept hold. The blade of the knife was weirdly cold in his gut. He could feel the pain from the wound in his back, but not from where the knife was now. Kitchen knife. His own. The paring knife, thank God. The blade was small, but long.

Jennifer was still struggling, red fingernails digging channels in the back of his hand, but Jack had a damned good grip on her hair. She was panicking, probably the only thing keeping her from continuing her attempt to murder him.

Phone...where was the phone again? There, on the floor. Two feet away. Still glowing, still active. "Ambulance." Jack told the phone. Not sure his voice would reach. Not sure Viv could hear him.

The air he needed to be louder wasn't coming to him. Blood was filling his mouth but he couldn't tell if it was from the bit tongue or something worse. Enough blood had begun to collect on the hardwood that Jennifer's squirming spread it around and made the surface around them slick. She was losing purchase and panicking all the more in the voluminous folds of the gown that she still hadn't changed out of.

When she finally gave up on his hand and tried to come at his face Jack's arm flexed instinctively. He felt one of the stitches from the gunshot wound pop, his arm straightened involuntarily and he drove Jennifer's head against the hardwood.

Her skull bounced, she groaned, then went still, knocked out cold.


	9. Chapter 9

It took concentration to pull his hand free of her hair. A dozen strands came with it, stuck to his palm. Jack spat blood at the floor, dragging heavy breaths into his lungs, eyeing the phone again.

He crawled and slid on his own blood, picked up the phone in a hairy palm and winced as he was forced to swallow a mouthful of crimson in order to speak clearly.

"Viv..?"

"Jack! Jack I called an ambulance, they're on their way!"

"Sh-stabbed me..." He mumbled. The move to a sitting position was relatively easy given the slick on the floor. He leaned back against the wall until the pressure building up in his left side was eased. He couldn't hold the phone for long. Both arms hurt too much.

He left a bloody finger print on the phone, right over the speakerphone icon, then let the phone rest on his thigh where it jiggled with the uncontrollable tremor in his leg.

"Where Jack, where are you hurt?" Viv's voice came distantly.

"Left side." Jack managed, looking at the clean slice on his palm, the hairs on his other palm. Jennifer, unmoving, but breathing on the floor at his feet. "Blood everywhere."

"You've got to stop the bleeding, Jack." Viv said. It might have been seconds later, or hours.

Jack knew first aid. They received training twice a year. He'd been partnered with Elena when they went through the CPR portion. They'd taken it seriously, but added a little drama at the end when the instructor had declared their CPR patient to be alive, thanks to their efforts.

Unlike your standard CPR training, Jack and his team had been put through extra paces. CPR is easy for the first minute and a half. Then it starts to get difficult, and then impossible. A marathon of tiny, controlled motions and calculated breaths. It had been exhausting and Elena had looked elated when it all paid off. She'd shouted something celebratory in Spanish, throwing her arms back.

The rest of the team had been drawn to the happy "scene" and after, when they'd decided to end the otherwise boring day with a meal together, the others of the team had repeatedly described the way Jack and Elena had looked, congratulating each other over the saved life of a plastic, armless torso.

Jack used the curtains. Getting them down meant tugging until the aluminum curtain rod came free. He filled his bleeding palm with material then shifted until he could get the mass of cloth between his back and the wall. The knife was still sticking out of his gut, filling that hole, stopping the blood.

"Jack...talk to me, Jack."

 _Talking...Viv, talking takes air, and I can't get enough of it. You wanna talk, talk to your husband._ The last word made it out of his mouth.

Viv caught it, waited in silent confusion for a second then said, "Whose husband, Jack?"

 _Yours, ya dummy._ He was sinking. Falling asleep. Something he needed desperately to do. He hadn't slept more than five hours at a time since John Macy's attack in the office.

"Sleep..."

"No Jack, you gotta stay awake...the ambulance is almost there. Stay awake, Jack..."

Then the phone finally slipped off his leg. The tremors were too violent. It didn't break, renewing Jack's faith in the cover he'd bought for the damned thing. The old flip phones. He could drop one of them from the George Washington bridge into oncoming traffic and it would hold together. But not these new phones.

"Jack?"

"Still here.." He grunted.

The strangest sound came from the phone. It sounded like a gasp, or a sob. It didn't belong with Viv's voice, and it seemed that Vivian knew that too. There was a long, stablizing breath that filtered through the speaker before Viv spoke again, her voice tight. "That's the way I want it, Jack."

Jack nodded, closed his eyes. He knew.

"S'ok..."

"Just hang on."

"...will."

Jack's face contorted and he felt the pain take over for a bit. Pain was in the brain...some sergeant had said that to him, during basic. The idea had been that Jack could take control of, and ignore pain if he put his mind to it. Later, when Jack had left the army and joined the FBI, started his master's degree in psychology. He'd realized how right the sergeant had been. Pain was just unfelt, frantic electrical impulses until it reached the brain.

What he was feeling, wallowing in, in that moment was all due to the damned receptors in his brain, laboring under the overload of signals. Microscopic chemical signals that could bring a man to his knees.

When it began to die again Jack managed a deeper breath. It rattled in his throat but it didn't inspire the congested cough he was expecting. A good sign? He would take it.

"Viv?"

"I'm here, Jack." She said, but her voice echoed. A minute later he realized why when Vivian swept into his apartment, gun drawn. Her Bluetooth glowed at her ear and he could hear her breathing into the phone. "God..." He heard her say, from two different directions.

Viv heard it too and angrily ripped the Bluetooth away, tossing it toward the dining room before she knelt at his side and lifted his shirt away from the knife handle.

The first EMT burst through the door in her wake carrying a giant, orange bag. An exact replica of the damned emergency kit stashed behind the reception desk in the FBI building. _Oh the irony._

Jack became an observer from then on, like a school kid reviewing a book for a report. Viv moved out of the way and the EMT swooped in, doing busy things that hurt.

Jack watched Vivian, watched as she stood and stared open mouthed at the decorating Jennifer had done, the way she was dressed, the large smear of blood that telegraphed the struggle. She was quick to realize that she needed her Bluetooth to not be a part of the crime scene and went to pick it up.

A few minutes later Jack was awake again. The gurney was there and somehow Jack was able to get on it. He was forced onto his side, propped up by blocks of styrofoam coated in rubber. More pressure, more pain.

Viv was there, talking to no one...Bluetooth, Jack remembered a second later. Probably calling the rest of the guys.

In his mind Jack was interviewing Vivian. "What did you find when you arrived at the scene?"

"My partner. He'd been stabbed. There was blood everywhere and rose petals. And a girl in white."

"Do you think your partner was romantically involved with the girl?"

But Vivian didn't respond to the question. She looked away, tears in her eyes. Then Jack was awake again, bouncing in the back of an ambulance.

"Viv?" No one answered him.

Maybe he hadn't been heard.

Jack took a deeper breath. "Viv? Somebody?"

"Anybody!?"


End file.
